How many of you make a proactive effort to communicate well with your flights? During the NTSB investigation of UPS 1354 the dispatcher told investigators that he rarely talked to flight crews and only when they initiated the conversation. Do you communicate effectively with your crews. Such as simple things such as ride reports and wx updates for them. Also with the issues with incomplete wx info now at the forefront a la compass airs recent fine and the UPS 1354 wx remarks issue, what are airlines now doing to make sure that crews have all the wx info they need? Are they literally copy and pasting remarks sections into ACARS after the pilots do an ACARS WX request and just get metars? Are there now pages and pages of WX info for every sigmet/airmet on the FBP?
Communicating with flight crews
- Thread starter A1TAPE
- Start date
BobDispatch
Well-Known Member
I just use acars to update the flight crews with sports scores. 
manniax
Well-met in the Ka-tet
Where I work, on international flights we're required to do a pre-flight briefing for flights of six hours or more in length. However the obligation is on the captain to call in and initiate it - but most of them do. For in-flight weather updates for turbulence, TAF updates, etc. I generally use ACARS when possible.
DispatcherSam
Well-Known Member
I usually pick one day a week to communicate with airborne crews. Any more than that and they start to expect more from me, and well....the YouTube isn’t going to watch itself!
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...I think there is some confusion in that communicate doesn't necessarily mean 'talk' or have a conversation. I and many or my peers talk to captains on roughly 5 percent of their flights or even less, but communicate on a much higher percentage or them. I typically use ACARS for most of my communication and less typical would be phones, GoGo, Satcom, and radio calls. In the old days, each dispatcher at my airline had to have a license to operate a radio and mine is called a Restricted Radiotelephone Operater Permit issued by the FCC. This may have been a requirement because we operated a HF radio at times and I am not certain what the requirements were at other airlines.
N77022
Descending Via
Watch the active route, and suggest deviations appropriately. Usually just a quick "Line of weather ahead around *Fix on active route* tops to FL600 moving NNE 20kts. Recommend direct *Fix* direct *fix*"
Or if there's a possibility for airborne holding "Holding ahead around *fix on STAR transition*, expect up to xx minutes of holding due to *volume/weather on field/emergency inbound*"
Most importantly is when a crew tells you "Holding at *fix* efc xxxxZ" usually come back with a "BURN DQO.PHLBO3.KEWR 800.. MINF TO EWR 2400 FOB 3500 SCF/TNK 1100 for XX minutes of holding" and usually follow up with the best plan of action should we hit minf such as "ABE BEST ALTN.. MINF PPOS DCT ABE 2300"
Or if there's a possibility for airborne holding "Holding ahead around *fix on STAR transition*, expect up to xx minutes of holding due to *volume/weather on field/emergency inbound*"
Most importantly is when a crew tells you "Holding at *fix* efc xxxxZ" usually come back with a "BURN DQO.PHLBO3.KEWR 800.. MINF TO EWR 2400 FOB 3500 SCF/TNK 1100 for XX minutes of holding" and usually follow up with the best plan of action should we hit minf such as "ABE BEST ALTN.. MINF PPOS DCT ABE 2300"
Luigi
Well-Known Member
I always include along with that info an expected hold duration such as “two AC in hold on your arrival, avg hold length currently 15minutes and decreasing” because all too often my crews will receive an EFC of 45 minutes when I’m actuality ATC doesn’t plan to hold them for more than 10 minutes.
How can you tell how long their holds are? Just look at the ASD and see how mamy laps they do?
Luigi
Well-Known Member
Fusion will show you the avg hold length. And if you can’t see that, you can be like “hey dude-broh captain, that regional punk in front of you got 2 turns before being cleared in”
PrincessJuliana
Well-Known Member
We used WSI Fusion at the airline I was with, and it had a feature to track total hold time for each acft in the stack.
autosave36
Go High Go Fast and Hold.
Depends on the flight. If you have a 20 minute DTW-LAN flight, where they go up to MAYBE 10000 ft there's a good chance that you won't be communicating with them at all unless the weather is so bad that holding is expected or a diversion is possible. A lot of flights once you have your certificate and are on the floor you won't say a word to unless there's a logistical reason to. A good portion of your flights will be VFR station to vfr station with nothing of note between them. However when rides are expected to be bad, or the weather could be a problem or we have a crew time issue or a closure to contend with you bet i'm all over them. I've sent/gotten acars messages for anything from (like the first reply) a pilot wanting to know the score of a game, heading near a tropical storm, to holding waiting for vis to creep back up, to fielding captain requests for hotels or what not (I find that i get a ton of these... one wanted to be changed to the double tree for a 'comfortable bed with good quality rest and a free cookie'), to requests to get an actual gate at LGA. .... You never know what the next one will say. Usually it's just "thx"
F
Flying Saluki
Guest
At one employer, don't know how it came to be, but a lot of Captains had the habit of calling their Dispatcher in the morning, often before they left the house/hotel. We'd have the chance to give them a brief on how their day was shaping up. We'd tell them their initial tail number, any aircraft swaps they could expect, MELs, and give a brief overview of the weather. I thought it was great. It was a chance to do a little team building, and for the Captain to brief their crew, and mentally prepare themselves for the day. If there were delays, it meant they could sometimes stay in the hotel a little longer, preserving their crew duty time, and make for a better rested crew. It was maybe a 2 minute conversation, but I like to think it made for a safer and more efficient operation.
Flagship_dxer
Penske Material
At a small airline or an airline with light dispatch workload this is possible. However, at a larger airline and one with a high workload there is no reason to have a briefing before every flight and no reason for the dispatcher to hand hold the pilots. I think it is a detriment to safety if dispatchers try to hand hold their crews as pilots get into the belief that dispatch will catch any problem we may have. I think briefings should be on a case by case basis about important things that are not or may not be something they can see by reading the paperwork and pre-flighting their aircraft. Make sure the crews know about legalities and significant weather or ATC but unless you dont have much to do, briefing every crew on what planes they are going to fly, what hotels they are staying at, and weather on a VFR day is a waste of time and takes away from flight following, briefing crews that are airborne on changes in weather, ATC.
I would say that briefing every crew can be detrimental in the sense that pilots can get the idea that dispatchers arent doing much and only dedicated to them or a small number of flights.
CPZ9900
Well-Known Member
Communicating and "briefing" every flight even if its a "not much going on, should be a good ride" is not a safety concern. However, having too many flights and not be able to communicate is.
Do you have to tell Fusion to start tracking each aircraft or does WSI automatically track hold times? Also do you start the track after the first lap or start when passing the holding fix?
YES YES 100x YES the DT cookies are AMAZING!! I heard somewhere though that they lost popularity when the nutrition info got pasted onto the bag and people saw the calorie count.
4EngineETOPS
Well-Known Member
The crew bus driver for one airline brings a whole bag to the office every couple weeks.
Unfortunately there are several people that raid the bag before I can get my hands on one most of the time.